Book of Secrets
by QuiteQuiet
Summary: Elsa and Anna have private journals, but that doesn't mean they're not curious about each other's writing. Taking faith in convoluted improvisation, they vow to discover the words hidden between those pages. [Elsanna one-shot]


_**Author's Note:**_

_**um**_

_**There's a joke floating around about the**_** "Elsa's/Anna's Book of Secrets"_ merchandise. Someone really wanted a fanfiction where those books took a very particular twist. I decided to try it out._  
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**_Enjoy._**

**_UPDATE 12/18: Uh...I just realized this is a crackfic. Just wanted to throw it out there._**

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><p>Anna was going to figure things out.<p>

She'd seen Elsa writing in that gilded journal. It couldn't have been something regarding her affairs as queen, either. Elsa looked far too happy with whatever she was writing.

It was a mistake for Anna to have mentioned it. She'd barged into Elsa's bedroom one evening, intent on riding their bike down the hall. Elsa responded by screaming and flinging the journal in the air. It bounced off the bed to smack on the floor, the noise making her cringe. Anna meant only to pick it up, but Elsa had yelled, "Don't!" before snatching it and holding it protectively. Anna couldn't remember the last time she looked so terrified.

She tried to make a joke. "You're not plotting against that many neighboring kingdoms, are you?"

"Leave the room, Anna," Elsa had said. "Please."

She'd nervously put the journal under her pillow. Anna scuttled into the hall.

Looking at it now, she really was crossing the line. Elsa had been tentative but eager to rekindle their bond, showing herself especially concerned with making Anna happy. It was only right for Anna to respect her privacy, something Elsa took very seriously. Until now her prying about the journal hadn't gone further than pressing her ear against Elsa's closed door in attempt to hear the rapid scribbling of a quill.

(usually, she did.)

The whole thing was torture. She was dying to know what Elsa wrote about. Which is why one day when Elsa's workload had considerably lightened, Anna insisted on taking her out to the garden for a game of hide-and-seek.

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><p>Elsa was going to figure things out.<p>

It was a funny thing, but maybe not unusual, that she and Anna both had private journals. She'd seen her sister writing furiously away in the pages, about what, Elsa could only guess. One time she'd found Anna writing in a tree. After raising a hand to shade herself from the sunlight, Anna had looked down on her.

"Do want me to move?"

"What?" said Elsa.

"The sun is in your face. Do you want me to move so it doesn't bother you?"

"Um, no?"

Anna had giggled, then went back to the journal. Elsa couldn't help herself. "What are you writing about?"

Anna stopped then, and slowly turned down again, the journal clasped between her fingers. She looked positively smug.

"That's for me to know, isn't it?"

Her words were met with a blast of ice that shot past her ear. She dodged to the right, the branch swaying. Another zap from Elsa's fingers and it collapsed.

"Oh no," said Anna, hearing that horrible crack.

She'd tumbled, admirably, Elsa noticed, with a firm grip on the journal. Then she burst from a snowbank on that cloudless day, the shock making her leap haphazardly to get away. She landed in front of Elsa.

"So," said Elsa. "What's in the journal?"

Anna had paused before hopping back. The grin swapped to her face when Elsa blinked in surprise. After a moment of relish Anna spoke.

"That's for me to know."

Elsa swiped for the journal, lamely; Anna had twirled seamlessly out of the way the second she moved. Elsa's splutter turned into a pout, and Anna ran away with the journal on her chest, cackling at her victory.

It wasn't over. They'd declared personal war, and as awful as it was, Elsa could not deny a strong curiosity about whatever Anna had been journaling. She certainly wouldn't tell anyone what was inside. But the girl was so fervent, so indiscreet about where she wrote…Elsa could swear Anna did it on purpose sometimes, picking places she knew Elsa would pass. As if the closed eyes and scrunched expression of false innocence could suggest otherwise. So when Anna led her out of the study one day to play in the garden, Elsa obliged. They made it to the fountain, and Anna let go of Elsa's arm.

"So," said Elsa. "What are we playing?"

"Hide-and-seek," Anna chirped.

Elsa's eyebrow rose. "Hide-and-seek."

"Yep."

It was so childish, but Anna looked so bright that day, dressed in a splendid green, the balls of her feet rocking as she waited for Elsa's approval. Elsa crossed her arms.

"Fine," she said, smirk still present. "We're playing hide-and-seek."

"Great. Now, you go over here…"

"Wait. _I'm_ the seeker?"

"Yes." Anna kept pushing her to the biggest tree in the garden. At the trunk Elsa looked back nervously, saw the faintest glimmer in Anna's eyes.

"Are you ready?" said Anna.

"Uh..."

"Don't tell me you're chickening out on hide-and-seek."

"_No_, I—" If Anna escaped her sight, she might later be caught snooping. Elsa's mind flurried for excuses, anything to distract her long enough, oh, hide-and-seek really was childish, what was she _thinking_—

"Are you ready now?" asked Anna.

"LOOK, A PIG!" Elsa screamed, pointing in a random direction.

"Oh my god, where?!"

Elsa spun her away from the castle. "Over there! Around the corner!"

"Oh, he thinks he can get away from me, does he?" Anna didn't even raise the hem of her dress. She was gone in a flash, fabric whipping behind her. Elsa counted to ten before stealing back into the castle.

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><p>Though they didn't know it, they panicked at the same moment.<p>

Elsa tore through Anna's room, hurriedly returning things in place when she found they did not conceal her prize. Anna's room was a mess, but even she couldn't make an item this hard to find, right?

She was running out of time. If she didn't get the journal soon, Anna might chase the imaginary pig into the kingdom, causing a disaster that would leave everyone in distress. Worse, Elsa might be caught red-handed going through Anna's things! She searched faster, lines of ice crackling along the walls.

After three minutes of making various pig calls in the castle courtyard, Anna realized she'd been set up. She stood in the middle of the brick surface, feeling incredibly ripped off.

"What a stinker," she muttered, chuckling uneasily. And then—

"The journal!"

She ran faster this time, streaking into the castle and up the stairway. The velocity made her spiral ascent quite dizzying, but what other opportunity did she have? Elsa could have been anywhere.

She made it to Elsa's door, slammed into it—locked. Of course. Anna heaved for huge breaths alone in the hall. Then the toll of her exertion started catching on. It did not look good. She was pressured and sweaty and how was she going to get in?! Elsa could have been _anywhere_! What if she were about to pounce on Anna that very second?

Elsa did not register the roar or the sound of breaking wood, as she was too stunned by the words in front of her.

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><p>Anna cartwheeled into Elsa's room, leaving splinters on her way through. She landed poised on her feet, sight darting across the perfectly kept space.<p>

"The bed!" Anna leapt onto it, arms out in desperation. The springs bunched together at the impact; she rocketed back up, almost hitting the canopy before wildly scrabbling in the air. She grabbed the pole and it shunted down. Anna flailed in the canopy's grasp, finally shoving it up enough to get to Elsa's pillow.

"There!" The journal was hers. It was leather and polished and finely kept.

Anna didn't have time to revel. She fumbled the cover, almost dropping it in her rush, and quickly snapped the book open to its latest entry.

_Please, god, don't let me be the only one._

"Huh?"

She read with more focus, deciphering the tone. _Don't let me be the only one who feels this way. It's unnatural, it's _wrong_, even more so that we're both female, but…Anna's my sister! What kind of abomination am I for wanting to kiss her?_

Anna went very quiet. Then, as if the journal had physical power, she leaned back from it.

"_Elsa_?"

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><p>Elsa had gone paler than usual. Anna's stream of thoughts was laid out for her in scrawled, but readable print, and while they meandered, there certainly was a recurring theme.<p>

_And a minute after I fell from the tree she walked in like nothing happened and went to get some soup. Is it weird that I think she's adorable when she eats soup? She's so proper and elegant about it, and her eyes close in this moment of pleasure when the spoon reaches her lips…wait, now I'm thinking of her lips again. I shouldn't! I can't! I mean, we're sisters! I can't go for moonlit strolls with my sister!_

At the last words the color came back to Elsa's face, filling her in a deep deep red. Her mouth had not closed. A few seconds later, she placed the journal back on its spot on the dresser.

They met in the hallway, still quite silent. Anna's hands were fanned at the body of her dress. Elsa blinked, then made the tiniest noise.

"Well," said Anna.

"meep," said Elsa.

"I think maybe…we should talk about this sometime," said Anna. "But maybe not now, because you don't look like you're in the mood. And that's okay, because, like, it's _really_ hot in here."

Frost was prickling along the carpet's edge. Elsa and Anna walked quickly down the hall.

"Hey, why is my door broken?"

It had clearly been kicked through. Elsa stared into the gaping hole, at the rumple of her canopy stilted into bits.

"I can explain," said Anna.


End file.
